The draw for the penultimate round of the Club Championship has been posted. All games, save for those affected by dispensation, are to be played on 27th March.

Entries for the Champagne Moment of the Championship are invited. Please submit these to the Tournament Secretary.

Partha Mulay leads the Championship and Junior Championship on 6/7. Manuel Perez Carballo and Steve Rix are his nearest challengers half a point behind with Aadarsh Saravanan pressing hard in the Junior competition on 5/7.

All the Junior competitors are playing impressively well above their grading with the relative performance junior prize wide open:

Blitz Championship

John Hodgson Masterclass

The New Year activities opened on 2 January, when 22 members contested the Blitz Championship. John Hodgson put on a masterclass of Blitz Chess, in winning with a clean score of 7/7, two points clear of his nearest rival, Steve Rix, second on 5/7.

Grading Performance prizes went to Kyan Bui (+36 =164 off a starting grade of 128) and Philip Staniland (+14 =172 off a starting grade of 158).

Wanstead win the Lawrance Cup

W&W 4½-3½ Barking

The first trophy of the season was won in the North Circular League team Rapid Knockout for Division A teams, the Lawrance Cup. On Tuesday, 16 January, the Club defeated Barking at home 4½-3½ in a thriller. The first round was shared 2-2, though Barking held the tie-break advantage. Matters were so close as the contest neared its conclusion, that a replay was on the cards, before Steve Rix shaded his game against Peter Jaszkiwskyj to clinch the Cup.

Wanstead lead NC Division A and reach Finchley Cup Final

A successful North Circular evening, Thursday 18 January, saw the Club defeat Chingford 1 in Division A to take the lead in the Division and reach the Final of the Finchley Cup – the NCL team Rapid knockout for Division B teams. The Finchley Cup match was an all-Wanstead affair

Round 4 of the Club Championship takes place on 19th December. Any further dispensation requests should be made to the Tournament Secretary now with availability dates to play before the scheduled date. All games commenced on or before 19th December should fall within the cut-off date of 31st December for inclusion in the new January Grading list. Those affected so far by the six granted dispensations have already been contacted by the controller and dates arranged. We have a busy start to the New Year before Round 5 of the Championship on 9th January with the Blitz Championship on 2nd January and three teams in action on 4th January. Please bear this in mind as this may also affect your choice of time control. Remember the single session options will need the agreement of your opponent, so think ahead now. The full draw for Round 4 will be published on Thursday 7th December following Matthews v Whitton which will be played to a finish on the night. This result will determine the pairings on the top four boards.

I have now published the prize list for this year’s Championship which can be viewed HERE (pdf)

Lightning Championship – 3 October: Congratulations to Mark Murrell on his first success in this event, scoring 6/7 with a grading performance of 189. Mark’s five wins included success against first teamers Ian Hunnable and Vladimir Parols and a draw with Club Champion, David Spearman and with Philip Staniland. David Spearman came second with 5½, followed by Ian Hunnable, Terry Whitton, Philip Staniland, 4½. 18 entries. Full details link below.

Fixture changes… Planner update: There are a couple of fixture changes: i) Essex League 4th team, v Loughton 2, originally 26 October has been rearranged, at Loughton’s request and will now be played 11 January. ii) North Circular League, 3rd team v Barnet Eliz. 2, originally 2 November, is postponed, new date to be confirmed (29 March offered). Both changes are charted in the online Planner, and the Loughton 2 change, (but not yet the NC2 change, as it is not yet confirmed) in the downloadable “Murrell” (link below).

Club Championship, Round 2 – 24 October: A semi-upset for defending Champion, David Spearman, held to a draw by Laurie Burtt and a good result for Jean Mara with a win against Mark Le Gassicke, otherwise no upsets, but there are four games still to be played, so still some scope… Find latest results in the Club Championship page or from the Planner.

Handicap Blitz Grand Prix 1: The first of the 2017-18 Handicap Blitz Grand Prix takes place on 7 November in the Clubroom. This is the event with a time handicap: each game has a total of 16 minutes, with the stronger player getting less time, the weaker player more time. Five events over the season, with points aggregated over the series to find the Grand Prix winner, but each event can be taken separately and has its own prize fund, so members need not play in every event. Rules via the link below. Entries for 7 November to Mark Murrell (click this email link). Please register your intent to play so that the pairing software can be populated with player records.

U120 Training: Next session, Tuesday 31 October, in Roding room using the Smart board. Looking further ahead, the two sessions after that, in November are planned for Thurs 16 Nov and Thurs 30 Nov. Keep up with planned dates, using the Planner; all the U120 Training dates are shown in the extreme right column of the Planner, highlighted in yellow – can’t miss ’em!

Current season Club data: Remember: as circulated to all members, the main menu system above, is now in archive as we no longer have Administrator access to the website. The exception to this is the Statistics area linked from the ‘About’ menu (or link below). All current data is disseminated through front page posts like this one, with the main information of activities accessible from the Statistics menu. Use the Planner for an overview and looking ahead, use the stats pages for match information – results of past fixtures and dates for future fixtures for each team, with separate pages for standard games and rapid games. The plan is that we will be starting up a new website where we have full control when this site will remain as archive.